


Even Saying “No” is Exhausting

by AgentDanaZagreusScully



Category: Far Cry, Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Depression, Drinking to Cope, F/M, Light Angst, Mentions of Knifeplay and Spanking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 20:58:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14679384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentDanaZagreusScully/pseuds/AgentDanaZagreusScully
Summary: Esther had found a home in Hope County. A community that she loves and loved her in return. The Seeds are ripping that away and in the case of John she feels betrayed. She thought she knew him but he had marked her in spite of that.She retaliates.





	1. YES

**Author's Note:**

> Esther is a Hope County Ranger. She accompanied Whitehorse and his Deputies to the compound to arrest Joseph. She fills the boots of “Rook” in this story. 
> 
> Order of events may be skewed. I’m taking the bones and characters of the game and running with it. 
> 
> First Fic here on Archive. Let me know if you want more of this.  
> I hope that you all enjoy my love for those sad eyed villains.

_ The king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.  _

_ Esther 2:17 _

  
  


Esther felt the skin of her lower stomach pull angrily as she made to slip from her cot behind the bar of the Spread Eagle. Mary had set her up there once Father Jerome had brought her back from her encounter with John. The son of a bitch had wasted no time pulling her into his bunker and marking her. His fury, anger at what they were doing was so pointless but he refused to see sense. He had to make an example. Joseph had said she needed to reach the Gates of Eden or John would never see them. The man, the Seeds needed help.

There was still a sweet taste in her mouth and nose from the bliss he’d doped her with to prevent her from leaving. She would have laughed in his face for his inability to find another way but she was hurting and his men had not been gentle. Could not be seen as taking favorites, of being lenient. Especially not to someone who was partly responsible to the collapsing of the Project. He needed her to atone, like everyone else. In  _ front _ of everyone else.

When he had dragged her to that room she still had no idea if Hudson was even there. He wanted a show but he had just gotten his hands back on her. For this reunion John needed privacy. He urged her to say his new favorite word and she only gave him “no”. There was a plea in his eyes she knew he couldn’t register. Three times of saying no had her bent over, his belt to the swell of her backside until she could feel no more but the fire of pain.

Still she refused to give in to him. He had laid her down flat on the table. Esther had seen his indecision. His eyes looked at the tattoo gun in front of him and the scalpel laying in a try. She settled as he did, picking up the blade and yanking her pants down further until he could see the beginning of dark hair. He waited for her to beg him to stop. She gave him  _ nothing.  _ So he cut. He was true with his blade and she was breathless. He cut deeper in the ‘T’ and she had cried out. But not in pain.

Her body shuddered as she laced her boots quietly. Mary slept in a room down the hall and she couldn’t have her waking up. Jerome had wanted to keep her in the church but Esther had claimed she needed a drink. She had, drank. A lot. Mary’d pulled out the cot and she wasted the early evening passed out and sore.

It was sometime around two a.m. now and everyone had gone their separate ways a while ago. The ranger grit her teeth as she unfolded herself from her position of fastening her shoes. She felt like shit and even as her very core protested she stood and went to walk out the front door. Her fingers had only  _ just _ brushed the doorknob when she doubled back and slipped a bottle of Jack into her bag. Esther made a mental note to find some more later to replace it.

With a click, the door was closed and her path towards the car seemed clear, lit by the nearly full moon. There was a low rumbled gurgle at her side and she glanced over to see Peaches looking at her warily. The heterochromatic cougar could see all. She chuckled and pointed at the Jeep. “If you want to keep an eye on me I’ll be getting in there.” The big cat made a disenchanted purr and Esther rolled her eyes. “Up to you Peaches.”

Walking to the truck and opening it she waited patiently for the cougar to make up her mind. As soon as she jumped into the back, the ranger shut the tail end and got into the driver's seat. The stinging was getting worse and she had to roll down the waistband of her borrowed sweatpants.

The cougar growled in protest as she started the car and the Peggie tunes came on. ‘Let the Water Wash Away Your Sins” lulled through the Jeep. She shut it off, knowing the big old carnivor wouldn’t like anything that played. So, as she rolled out of Falls End without anyone except for those few on watch the wiser, the two listened to the motor and distant gunfire. She tuned it all out until only her destination was in her mind. She wasn’t a hero tonight, she wasn’t a resistance leader or a role model. Esther was just Esther. Park Ranger in Hope County.

Her goal put her at the Doverspike home. She had come here many times before. There was a fire tower and a watched wolverine hole up past their land. She’d gotten to know them...Leslie and her husband. They’d been strange at first, preppers but she’d been thankful for their company on cold nights on the watchtower. She hadn’t come down to the valley often but after baseball practice she liked to come over here and sit up towards the peek. Exactly where that eyesore of a sign sat.

She’d cleaned up the house after finding it in disrepair and had buried the couple around the side. It hadn’t been easy, but none of this was. The Ranger released Peaches from her Jeep prison and shoved the keys into her backpack.

Slipping behind the house she hoped to god her quad was still here. When it wasn’t she kicked the wall in frustration, a shot of pain racing up her right leg in doing so. “Fuck!” Her fingers shook as she brushed them through her hair to calm down. “God dammit all.” Peaches watched her do this in confusion at her human companion.

Esther shook her head and walked to the storage box on the north side of the house and pulled out a folded lawn chair. She was done with all of this shit. She was so  _ fucking  _ tired of John’s inability to see that what he was doing was wrong.

He’d been troubled before when they’d been in foster care, but so had she. Overcoming it was what she did. John let it overtake him. His damn baby blues were the same as they always were though. It was her downfall in thinking she could spark that little happiness that they had shared when they were children. To ignite passion and mischief of when they had seen one another again as teenagers nearly free of the system. Screw her for thinking she meant something to him.

She slid her arm through the strap of the chair and started towards the dark tree line. “Come on Peaches.” The cougar yowled in protest. She could smell her injury and by the way it burned, Esther knew it had opened up again. She ignored the animal and continued on through the trees towards the watchtower. Every step up the incline was a punishment and every wrong one could have been her last. It didn’t matter, she had it in her mind that she would get to that damned sign. The joy and relief that filled her when she saw the quad sitting underneath the firetower pushed her over the edge to crying.

Hot tears did spring to her eyes in that moment as she fell to her knees next to the vehicle. It was all too much. Could she even do it anymore? Why could she not have the life she thought she deserved? She’d never had a family until she came here. And the one person who she thought had been perfect...well he was taking it all away. Silent sobs tore through her as she leaned against the tower. How dare he. How dare his family take what little she had. The cougar bumped her shoulder and it only fed her cries. She pounded the side of her fist against the metal then bit back another sob. Sad eyes greeted Peaches when the cougar protested her friend standing. “Are you ready to run Peaches?”

Esther could barely muster the energy to slid her leg over the other side of the quad. Her own panting at the exertion of making her way up the mountain filled the still night air until the roar of the starting vehicle ripped through the trees. Peaches took off up the mountain because she knew where they were going and The Ranger followed. It was slow going for a little while, the terrain unsteady and the path narrow but she made it to the base of that sign without too much trouble.

The crippling silence returned and she dismounted the atv. The ‘YES’ was dark. The cult hadn’t gotten around to feeding electric up here or putting up lights to showcase this gaudy sign even into the night. Chair set up and Jack Daniels pulled from her bag, she looked out over the valley. There were less lights now and more fires. The only lights in the sky were planes that had no reason to be flying overhead other than to terrorize and track the leaders of this resistance down.

Esther drank half of the bottle by the time a gray glow spread over the valley. Dawn was coming and she had work to do.

Placing the Jack in her spot in the chair she stood shakily, digging into her bag again. The ranger pulled a rocket launcher from the duffle and without a second thought loaded it up. She wasted no time moving to the back of the sign and pointing the aim at one of the letters.

“Burn motherfucker.”  _ Thunk.  _ Her shoulder jerked back as the rocket flew and crashed into the ‘Y’. Chunks of the white letter collapsed to the ground. It began to burn but the need to destroy this sign only grew stronger within her.  _ Thunk.  _ Again and again she reloaded and fired at John’s sign. Until all that stood was the steel beams, she fired. The rain of the week long storm had soaked the earth deep and the fires would not spread here. Tonight had been perfect.

When the sun rose over the valley and shone upon the place where the sign had stood the cult would find it lacking but what Esther had beget..she found to be good. The the bare steel shone bright in the light and the flames burned around her but there was still a hole in her chest. Her heart had been ripped out by her first real friend and it didn’t seem as if there was a way to have it returned. With her lips wrapped around the bottle she wept for the boy that the world had failed and the man he had become.

She was trapped on the side of the mountain until the flames died down or until someone dragged her back. That was fine. She settled herself behind a small bush and sipped at her whiskey tearfully as her radio buzzed in and out with worried friends and an angry Mary. Even a few cheers rang through. Nick one of those cheering. Kim enquiring about her health in the back. It was all static to her until one voice rang out clear on her private frequency.

“You realize that you have done nothing. Your attempt to circumvent my efforts in this valley are fruitless. Your childish destruction of my sign will be severely punished!” She heard the strain in his voice. “You  _ will  _ rebuild that. Every piece. You may be bruised and broken by the end but it will only bring you closer to Edens Gate. You  _ will  _ say yes. Esther...you  **will** say yes.”

She comms back almost immediately refusing to give him time to say more. Over the public frequently she delivered a hollow rally cry. “We are all tired of saying yes. The people here, the land as well...and we are done.” Switching back to John’s frequency to sink it home to him she grit her teeth. “No means no.”

 


	2. Meat Loaf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all!  
> Thank you for the Kudos it’s really encouraging to see them all. Makes me all emotional.  
> I’m not sure how many chapters this thing is going to be but I’m just going to keep writing and see where it takes me. 
> 
> Anyways, to Chapter Two!

John slammed the comm down and grabbed the small picture frame that he’d been looking at for a few hours before he got the call from his men that the sign he had placed on the side of the mountain had been blown up. 

He knew it had been her. There was no one else who would dare. He hated that it made him hot knowing she had gone so far. She knew it would piss him off and she had done it in spite of it all. He yelled and threw the frame across the room, glass shattering onto the floor. 

“Why?! Why can’t she just say yes?!” His blood pressure was hitting through the roof. Damn that woman. She was getting under his skin and he wasn’t fighting her. He grunted as he tossed his chair to the side. A few strands of hair found their way into his face and it only made him descend further into madness. She was ruining everything by not saying yes. Joseph would send her to Faith and she would be turned into a drugged up fool or worse it would be Jacob...he’d break her. He would put his damn hands on her and make her into a beast. 

“No! NO!” She wasn’t done with him until he said. He wasn’t done with her confession. But he would practice. He would take more, they would confess for him and he would convince her that it was the right thing for her to do. Laughter spilled from his lips and his eyes stung. 

As John became hysterical the door to his office opened. His gun was drawn when he turned to face the intruder with wide eyes and a heaving breaths. He dropped his hand down when he saw who it was. “Brother…” The defeat was evident in his voice as his shoulders fell and Joseph looked down his nose at him. He bowed his head, ashamed of the mess he had made in his office. “I didn’t mean- She-”

A hand slid over his shoulder and the racing of his mind calmed for just a moment. “No more excuses John. Tell me why you have let this Ranger affect you so?” He hugged him close. “You let your own rage and disappointment blind you. It throttles all ability you have to free yourself from the situation you are in.” He pressed his forehead to John’s. “If anyone can make this woman understand, it must be you John. Do not let this be your downfall.” His lips were cold as he pressed a kiss to his temple and squeezed his shoulder tight.

“Yes, Joseph.”

It was a whisper that the Father could barely hear but it was enough for now. His blue eyes guarded by the yellow tinted lenses caught sight of the frame on the ground. It was a group of teenagers smiling with a pair of adults. A foster home. Joseph felt John's eyes pleading with him to not pick it up but he did. It was a small four by six picture and it wasn’t the clearest but Joseph could pick his little brother out immediately. He was not looking at the camera. But to his left. 

He set the broken picture frame down on the desk and walked past John to the door. “Do not keep things from me brother. I can not help you if you hide things inside. Perhaps you need confession before you are able to receive them.” With that, Joseph left the room. 

John was shaking as he drew his gaze to the picture. He had seen it and it would only mean that Esther would be passed off sooner if he failed again. In the picture, a seventeen year old John was forgetting to pay attention to the camera so that he could look at the girl he had slept with in the barn the night before. “Esther…” 

The hole in his chest felt deeper now. Joseph had stripped away his anger like ripping off a bandage. The wounds of betrayal and longing exposed themselves to the surface and his vision blurred. He flipped the image face down and knelt down to clean the glass up. “All she has to do...is say yes.”

——

Esther pushed her long dark hair out of her face with her wrist in an attempt to not get soapy water in the locks. Not that it would have hurt, making sure one didn’t get fleas was always a plus. Boomer looked at her expectantly as he stood in the little tub for his bath. “I know, I won’t forget your treat. But we aren’t done yet.” She scratched behind his wet ears with a smile. “Such a good boy Boomer. The best boy.” He let a little puff escape his lips in response and she rinsed him off.

“Alright hop up on the table so I can dry you off and give you a good brushing.” The dog made his way to the picnic table out in front the Rye household. Kim had invited her for dinner claiming it was purely for sustenance. In claiming that, Esther knew she was in for a talk. Soapy water rushed out across the lawn as she dumped the tub over and turned, towel in hand, to Boomer. “Are you ready?” He barked as she skipped over and began to rub him down with the towel. 

Boomer tried to escape when she placed the towel down to avoid the brush but Nick swooped in just in time to distract him with an early treat. “You’re doing it all wrong Esther, you have to give them treats after every step.” 

“So he can get fat?” She put her hands on her hips as the dog ate a mini milk bone from the pilots hand. “It’s almost dinner time anyway. He’ll be eating plenty.” Nicks eyes widened as if she was accusing him of something. “I’ve seen you spoiling him Rye! Don’t you try and lie to me.”

“Well, I just- he’s been through a lot and he deserves all he wants.” Nick sniffed and tipped his hat as she glared at him. Esther rolled her eyes and bumped him out of the way with her hip. “Fine, fine. Torture the poor old boy with that brush. Kim says dinner’ll be ready in fifteen.” He winked and retreated back into the house before Esther could brush His hair too.

She groomed Boomer quietly now. Gently working out the bad patches in his fur, all the stickers that found their way in there from all their trudging through woods. He squirmed when she brush near his bum. “Getting a little fluffy back here hmm? Might have to get the clip-“ She didn’t even finish the words and he shot off the table and into the slightly open front door. “It’s only a matter of time Booms!” She chuckled and set the brush into her little bucket shaped like a pumpkin with the rest of Boomers bath supplies. 

A plane flew overhead as Esther tucked her hair into a bun and headed inside. It wasn’t a friendly and she would just as soon not be spotted here. She watched though from the porch to make sure it was just a flyover and that they’d seen nothing. It didn’t circle back and she just sighed. They were lucky that John didn’t simply have his people blow every one of their houses up. She knew he could, but whether it was Joseph telling him not to or maybe the idea that they could all still be saved...he didn’t go so far. At least not yet.

When Esther walked into the house she thought really hard about walking right back out. In the middle of the dining room table was a big ole loaf of meat. “Kim you have got to be joking. Meat loaf?” The smaller woman glared briefly at her as she dissed her food choice. “I mean, thank you for dinner I would love to have meatloaf and take some leftovers home for Peaches” This appeased her and Esther sat down at her usual spot.

Boomer, tired from his bathing ordeal lay sprawled out on the couch watching her with puppy dog eyes. If she didn’t want her meatloaf she knew one dog that was sure to eat it. Kim was too wise to be able to sneak her entire plate onto the floor without her noticing. She was shocked with herself. Did she just not finish telling Nick that her canine companion needed to eat better?

“Whew! Don’t go in there you might not come back.” He kissed Kim in the forehead and she scrunched up her nose. 

“I think it followed you in here Nick…” Kim sighed and pointed to his hands. “You washed?” Nick has been seconds from claiming his seat at the table before disappearing into the kitchen. Kim looked at Esther with a smirk. “He’s been working on that plane all day. Hands covered in oil and what not.” She waved a hand. “I’m not a germaphobe but I just want to have a nice dinner...with clean hands.” Nick slipped into his chair and held his hand out for both Esther and his wife.

As they said grace, Esther just watched their mouths move. The words were static in her ears. There couldn’t be a god in this valley. 

The three of them ate. Nick and Kim making up most of the conversation with quick retorts from her. Without too much effort she devoured her meat loaf. The ranger decided if she kept her mouth full she wouldn’t have to answer any questions that Kim might have. On that same note, she would need to split before there was enough time to stop her. 

Kim was eyeing her as she stood up while shoving the last bite of her meatloaf in her mouth. “Guys this was great but I should get back home to Peaches.” Kim stood with her and Nick looked really uncomfortable. She sighed. “Ok, why am really here? I’m starting to think that I was brought here to be cornered…”

“On that note I’m heading out.” Nick stood up and walked over to the dog laying in the sofa. “How ‘bout you and me go work on the plane buddy?” In his head there was always work to be done on his planes. Boomer jumped down from the couch and barked. “I’ll see you two later. Honey, dinner was amazing and I’ll clean up.” She smiled apologetically at Esther. “You two just talk.”

Esther watched him all the way until he had walked out the door and sat back down in her seat. “Kim?”


End file.
